Mammals in Our Backyard

We have decided to work through our list of mammals that we have observed in our backyard and make journal entries for them in our nature journals. Often times we observe an animal and do not take the time to do the research or the entry into our journals. On these cold, rainy days of winter we will take the opportunity to read about each one in the Handbook of Nature Study if possible and then record our findings. Many of the animals we observe are not specifically covered in the HNS, so we will use the internet or our field guides to get the information.

Here is the list of animals we are going to study:
(also found as links on my sidebar)

Western grey squirrel
Striped skunk
Broad-footed mole
Long-tailed vole
House mouse
Norway rat
Mule deer
Common raccoon
Little brown bat

Covering one animal per week for the next term, I think that our goal is within reach. I will share our results as we go along.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Cats: Up Close and Personal with Observations #1

The Handbook of Nature Study has lots of interesting things to do to observe your cat or kitten. Many of these activities I hadn't ever thought about before so I am grateful for the guidance of Anna Botsford Comstock.

On page 265 of HNS:
"This lesson may be used in primary grades by asking a few questions at a time and allowing the children to make their observations on their own kittens at home, or a kitten may be brought to school for this purpose. The upper grade work consists of reading and retelling or writing exciting stories of the great, wild, savage cats, like the tiger, lion, leopard, lynx, and panther."

Page 265 Observation #1:
"How much of Pussy's language do you understand? What does she say when she wishes you to open the door for her? How does she ask for something to eat? What does she say when she feels like conversing with you? How does she cry when hurt? When frightened? What noise does she make when fighting? When calling other cats? What are her feelings when she purrs? When she spits? How many things which you say does she understand?"

Our answers (given by my boys) Our cats give a soft meow when they want to go outside or they just sit by the door and wait. They sit in front of their empty dish and look at you when they wish for something to eat. They will rub up against you or jump up on our lap when they want a little "conversation". They hiss when they are hurt. The give a pitiful meow when they are frightened. When fighting, they hiss and put their ears down and chase each other through the house. They purr when they are enjoying a good pet and are relaxed. They will come when they are called "kitty". They come running when they hear the cupboard door open where their food is kept. They will jump down when you say sternly "down".

I think they did a good job answering the questions.

We will continue next week with our cat activities.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Introduction to Mammals: Handbook of Nature Study

The weather is changing in our part of the world and so is our focus for nature study. We are going to be using the Handbook of Nature Study to learn more in depth about mammals. We have lots of regular visitors to our backyard that will lead us on our adventure into our study.

If you look on my sidebar, I have listed a fairly complete list of mammals we have observed already. We will be looking for information in the HNS and using online sources to help us learn more about their lives and habits.

Handbook of Nature Study page 214:
"Mammals, in contrast to fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, are warm-blooded animals, as are birds. The skin of most mammals is more or less hairy, in contrast to the scale-covered fish and the feathered birds. The young of most mammals are born alive, whereas the young of birds, fish, amphibians, and some species of reptiles hatch from eggs. After birth young mammals breathe by lungs rather than by gills as do the fish; for a time they are nourished with milk produced by the mother."

We are going to start our study of mammals with one of our favorite subjects, our two pet cats, Cocoa and Espresso. There is a whole section in the HNS on cats starting on page 260. One section that particularly interests me is the subheading on page 264, "Cats Should Be Trained to Leave Birds Alone". (Don't tell Cocoa and Espresso that we are going to read that or they just may rip those pages out of the book.) There are many, many interesting points that Anna Botsford Comstock lists out to do in order to observe your cat.

Eager to get started, we will keep you updated with photos and observations.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Wrapping up our Fall Term Study of Insects

We have had several insects that we have seen and identified but not taken great photos of for the blog. One was an earwig that I found in my kitchen. I hate earwigs.

The Handbook of Nature Study does not have any information on the earwig but it is a great insect to identify the parts of an insect with. I knew what kind of insect it was so we did a quick internet search and found loads of information about it.

We also found a millipede which we quickly discovered was *not* an insect. It is an invertebrate. You can find an illustration of a millipede and a caption about it on pages 448-449 of HNS.


We also found a tarantula in our garage, dead and stiff. This made for some interesting observations. At first I was horrified by its appearance but then, after I knew it was dead, I was able to observe its parts and really see it up close. I don't care to do that too much but it was interesting this one time. :) So even though it technically isn't an insect, we did learn something about tarantulas.

Here's what the Handbook of Nature Study says on page 435-436:
"There is an impression abroad that all spiders are dangerous to handle. This is a mistake; the bite of any of our common spiders in not nearly so dangerous as the bite of a malaria-laden mosquito. Although there is a little venom injected into the wound by the bite of any spider, yet there are few species found in the United States whose bite is sufficiently venomous to be feared. With the exception of the tarantulas of the Southwest, and the hourglass or black widow, which seems now to be extending its range from the South, the spiders of the United States are really as harmless to handle as are most of our common insects."

Believe me, I will not be handling any tarantulas in the near future. :)

We are wrapping up the focus on insects and we will be moving on to mammals for now. I am sort of excited to start since I know we are going to learn so much about what has been under our very noses and we have missed it.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Paper Wasps-A Work of Art

You need to click on the photos to enlarge the photos and really see the wasp nest.

My dad found this paper wasp nest for us to look at in the tree behind his house. It is sooooo big I can hardly believe it. It does look like something has pulled it down and you can see the actual honeycomb cells that are exposed. Here is a better shot.

The texture of the nest itself is truly amazing. I found a resource online that says that they make the nest from a papery pulp of chewed up wood fibers mixed with saliva.

Page 378 of the Handbook of Nature Study has a lot of very interesting information about wasps in general.

Another great day out.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Crickets in the House

I have been busy trying to wrap up our fall study of insects. I never imagined we would enjoy finding and viewing insects as much as we did and I am sure part of it was the information provided in the Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Comstock provides such great investigations into the individual insects and we learned so much just by taking a few minutes each time we found a new insect to stop and really look at it. I think everyone in our family has gained a new appreciation for the little creatures we pass by so often.

Speaking of that topic, I had completely forgotten that we had our own personal laboratory in our house for studying a particular insect. Our Fire-Bellied toad eats crickets every morning and we keep a ready supply on hand but I had never thought to investigate them in the HNS. Sure enough, there on page 344 there is the start of a whole section on crickets. On page 346 there are instructions for making a "cricket cage". Pages 347 and 348 have observations questions for you to use with your cricket.

Here's something interesting from page 346: "There would be no use of the cricket's playing his mandolin if there were not an appreciative ear to listen to his music. This ear is placed most conveniently in the tibia of the front leg, so that the crickets literally hear with their elbows, as do the katydids and the meadow grasshoppers. The ear is easily seen with the naked eye as a little white, disclike spot."

Our crickets don't make any noise so I don't know what that means. They are rather small and we purchase them at the feed store, 40 crickets for $2.00. They are much smaller than the local crickets we find in our yard. They are golden in color. I am going to ask at the feed store the next time we get crickets and see if they know what variety of crickets they are. Even though our particular cricket is not listed in the HNS, we can still read through the sections on black crickets and snowy tree crickets and apply the information to our crickets. See, I am learning to not use this big book as a field guide but as a way to familiarize us with general information about something we find in our nature study. :)

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Nature Walk in the Big Trees

Big Trees.......Sequoiadendron giganteum

It is really hard to get a good photo of the big trees and all your kids at the same time. It is rather dark underneath this forest canopy .

Fallen trees are great for walking on, or falling off of in my case. I was so busy trying too look at some cool fungus that I slipped totally off and fell down. Okay, everyone laughed but it wasn't too funny for me. :)


Seed cones from the sequoia tree are rather small.

Baby sequoias


A variety of fungus was all around at this time of year....too bad I didn't have a field guide. Oh well, next time.



That is just a sample of our day out today.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom